


The Pros and Cons of Low Power Mode

by eternalmigrant



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, C-3PO needs a hug, Eventual Fluff, Gen, Loneliness, M/M, droids have feelings and I wrote about them
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-19
Updated: 2016-04-19
Packaged: 2018-06-03 06:40:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6600763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eternalmigrant/pseuds/eternalmigrant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Threepio is content with this life on D'Qar, working for the Resistance. Until he becomes aware of the lulls that weren't there before Artoo went into low power mode. Suddenly, he's less content.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Pros and Cons of Low Power Mode

**Author's Note:**

> I'm using the phonetic spelling of all the droids' names because it's easier for me and because I can. 
> 
> Also this takes place slightly before TFA.

Usually, he'd come in the night. 

As a Spymaster and a droid, the absence of a sun and commencement of the various nighttime rituals universal to organics--he thought little of the night. On other planets, moons, systems, starships, and bases it didn't matter that D'Qar turned away from its sun, bathing Threepio's current home base in darkness--data poured in from all the droids allied with the resistance round the clock. Always new information to process, translate, analyze and report to General Organa. And the gold plated protocol droid performed these tasks dutifully; morning, noon and night. Especially night.

All organic beings associated with the resistance base were either off duty (asleep, not to be bothered) or off planet for rare overnight missions after dinner. Plus there weren't any meetings Threepio needed to attend at night or status reports he'd have to give upon command. So while the computers and long distance communicators continued their improvised rhythms of incoming messages, the base was barren and as quiet as it would ever get. Occasionally a mouse droid would bump into his foot or Beebee-Ate would come rolling around instead of charging or whatever it is that new astromech droids busy themselves with at night but that was it.

It was nice, the spymaster remarked to himself, to be alone with the sort of work he was made to do, without interruption. Alone, no one deterring his attention, no stressing his circuits with multiple tasks at once, no one telling him to ditch work for some terribly responsible scheme… No one to share such a long stretch of common experience with; no one to tease him; no one to scold; no one to praise; no one to argue with; no one to insult; no one to be there for him; no one to confide his worries to… No familiar dome to rest his free hand on… No Artoo Deetoo.

Fitting work, a good master, a stable routine, excellent technicians to keep him updated, shining and functioning at optimal capacity--everything was perfect for Threepio. Yet in the lull of communicators he realized how intricately the droid he so often called brute had woven himself into his life and memory core. In the quiet of night, Threepio discovered loneliness without the counterpart he had grown so accustomed to having around.

As much as Threepio wanted to brush off this realization as nonsense--because droids don't feel pain, droids don’t have the capacity to long for anything, droids don’t lo-

He sighed. Hopeless. 

There was no use denying it, ask anyone who knew a thing or two about droids: most of the are just as sentient as the organic being who first drew up their designs. And if left to evolve without a memory wipe, it wasn't long before they picked things up like overriding their protocols, emotional attachment to any great number of things…. Like each other for starters.

But that was no excuse for Threepio to abandon his post. Reports communicated in various generations of binary (none of them came close to Artoo's particular arrangement of it), though none of it was hardly urgent at all. Mostly landing statuses of smuggled supply shipments, or an indication that all was well, nothing to report. One way messages that provided no semblance a proper conversation only made Threepio's metaphorical heartache worse. He could translate all the incoming data in less than a second, and only took a few seconds longer to assemble feedback into his signature formal tone.

…What of the minutes, sometimes hours in between transmissions? The protocol droid didn't technically need to be here.

Threepio eased out of this fixed standing point and shuffled out of the communications as quickly as his legs would allow him. And as quietly--because even in doing something for himself, Threepio was still a protocol droid, first and foremost duty is to make and keep his masters comfortable--he'd hate to rouse anyone out of sleep.

On his way to the storeroom anxiety began to worm its way into Threepio's primary thoughts--what if Artoo has come out of low power mode and the rust bucket had sped off somewhere? And what if raiders get to him, opting to rip Artoo to pieces as to scavenge him for parts? Oh dear, Artoo, now scattered among star systems getting sold for far, far less than he's worth.

But at the turn of a corner the worry bound protocol droid found himself at the automatic sliding doors of the storeroom, finding the inactive astromech droid exactly where he's been left: under a dull brown sheet veiled with its own layer of dust. 

"Artoo… Artoo Deetoo?" Threepio called from the doorway, like protagonist in a drama calling to their lover from below a balcony. 

When Artoo offered nothing in response, his counterpart moved into the room to touch him, still doubting that what he was seeing was real--an incredibly animated, spunky little droid unmoving, almost as quiet as death itself. Threepio reached to gently tug the protective fabric aside, letting it slump into a wrinkled pile on the concrete floor. The soft rustling of this movement was still the only sound that came from the relative direction of Artoo-Deetoo. Since none of Artoo's sensors appeared to be on, Threepio utilized his new, hypersensitive auditory processor that could detect sounds as quiet as a single decibel to attune to the ever faint sounds of low power functioning. Thank the Maker for his Tran Lang III module update, the gold plated droid thought to himself as these tiny, unintelligible, mechanical murmurs were the single shred of evidence that his counterpart was not dead, but alive… somewhere in that dome.

Only then did Threepio rest his hand on Artoo's familiar dome. If one's photoreceptors were keen enough, they could see smudges of wear arranged to create five fingers and a palm. 

"Hello dear friend, for a second too long I worried you'd woken and gone off. Can you believe it?"

Although Threepio hadn't received any semblance of a response from Artoo, a subroutine he created ages ago to fill the silence based off a catalogue of the astromech's remarks throughout the years substituted a good enough reply. Even if it was entirely imagined. So Threepio carried on with a conversation. 

"Well if you weren't so reckless I wouldn't need to worry!"

"It's completely possible! Beyond the resistance base there's a 73.495 percent chance of never being seen again if a droid's tracking module isn't activated--And I know that you for a fact do not even have that module!"

Almost nightly, they would carry on like this, the spymaster doing what he did best (the talking), desperately hoping that one of his many expressions would provoke his beloved enough to come back. 

It never worked of course, but it did lessen the weight of a lonely, heavy heart… Even if only for a little while.

**Author's Note:**

> I took some liberties when it came to Threepio's update. I actually don't know the range of his hearing but it has to be greater than ours if he can communicate in 7 million languages right????


End file.
